Eucharist

The Church tells us that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the whole Christian life.” Why?… Because Jesus is truly alive and present in our midst, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in “the breaking of Bread” at the celebration of the Holy Mass, and then as He reposes in tabernacles or is exposed in adoration chapels throughout the world. Jesus didn’t want to leave us, and so at the Last Supper instituted this great Sacrament. (Mt 26:17-30).

If we really believed that it is in the Holy Eucharist that God has established His throne here on earth, who wouldn’t want their whole life to revolve around His presence?

Furthermore, Jesus remains with us not only as King, Savior, Redeemer and Friend, but in a most profound way as Divine Lover and Bridegroom. The Wedding Feast at Cana (Jn 2:1-11), where water was turned into wine, is but a prefiguring of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-9) which is celebrated here on earth at every Holy Mass; where the bread and wine are turned into His Body and Blood, and we the “bride” the Church are to receive our Divine Eucharistic Bridegroom.
 

The Greatest of Human Yearnings

Our Eucharistic Bridegroom remains not only to “stay with us,” but to “abide in us” Pope St. JPII tells us (2004, Mane Nobiscum Domine).

“Is this not the greatest of human yearnings?” He asks. “God has placed in human hearts a ‘hunger’ for his word (cf. Am 8:11), a hunger which will be satisfied only by full union with him. Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be ‘sated’ with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfilment in heaven.”

The Terrible Thirst of God

“I thirst with such a terrible thirst to be loved by you in the Most Blessed Sacrament,”Jesus tells us through St. Margaret Mary. “My Eucharistic presence is truly my Sacred Heart living and beating among you.”

And, through Sr. Josepha, “It is love for souls that keeps Me a prisoner in the Blessed Sacrament. I stay there that all may come and find the comfort they need in the tenderest of Hearts, the best of Fathers, the most faithful of friends, who will never abandon them.”

Mary reportedly tells us through the visionaries of Medjugorje that the Holy Mass is “the most important and the most holy moment in our lives. We have to be prepared and pure to receive Jesus with a great respect. The Mass should be the center of our lives.”

“Mass is the greatest prayer of God. You will never be able to understand its greatness.” (1983)

“I wish your Mass to be an experience of God.” (1985)
 

Receiving Our Divine Bridegroom

Husbands and wives consummate their Marriage vows by their nuptial embrace, becoming a one-flesh union.

All of us as Baptized Catholics are called to consummate our Baptismal vows through the reception of Jesus in Holy Communion. It is then that we as His Bride, the Church, become a one-flesh union with our Divine Bridegroom. This is what prepares us for our eternal destiny: “the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.”

Why is it that we see a canopy over the altar at St. Peter’s at the Vatican (as well as at other Churches)? Because the holy altar is considered the “wedding bed” on which our Divine Bridegroom gives of Himself totally for His beloved bride. When the priest in “persona Christi” holds up the host and says, “This is my body, given for you…This is my blood, given for you,” it is at this moment that we are re-living Jesus’s total gift of Himself for us at the Last Supper and at Calvary. And, then, we, His Bride, come up to receive Him.

In a holy and healthy marriage, would any bride, after receiving her bridegroom,not want to rest with him in their nuptial embrace of love? And this image is meant to be a concrete sign, though limited as it is, of the nuptial union to which we’re all called with our Eucharistic Bridegroom.

Should we who are espoused to Christ through Baptism, not want to rest in our nuptial union with Him after we have received Him in Holy Communion?

+Oh Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Spotless Bride, teach us how to open ourselves to receive Jesus – our Divine Eucharistic Bridegroom – ever-more purely and wholeheartedly+

“I hope that … perpetual adoration, with permanent exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, will continue into the future. Specifically, I hope that the fruit of this Congress results in the establishment of perpetual Eucharistic Adoration in all parishes and Christian communities throughout the world.”

Pope John Paul II
45th International Eucharistic Congress
Seville, Spain: June 1993

Just as it is important for husband and wife to spend quality time together,sharing heart to heart, in order to get to know and love one another deeply and personally. Otherwise, the relationship will be lacking; especially if they only spend time together in physical intimacy. In the same way, we are called to spend time with Jesus, outside of receiving Him in Holy Communion, in order that the communion will be all the more real and personal.

Pope Benedict tells us that he hopes the practice of Eucharistic adoration “will become ever more widespread.” He goes on, “How much need modern humanity has to rediscover the source of its hope in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. I thank the Lord because many parishes, alongside the devout celebration of Mass, are educating the faithful in Eucharistic adoration. It is my hope that this practice…will become ever more widespread.”

One day before her Holy Hour, Jesus showed Blessed Dina Belanger a multitude of souls on the precipice of hell. After her Holy Hour, Jesus showed the same souls in the hands of God. He told her that through Holy Hours of prayer a multitude of souls go to Heaven who otherwise would have gone to hell as one person can make up for what is lacking in the lives of others by winning precious efficacious graces for their salvation.

“If souls but understood the Treasure they possess in the Divine Eucharist…the Churches would overflow with adorers consumed with love for the Divine prisoner no less by night than by day.”

Jesus said to Bl. Dina Belanger – “My Heart overflows with graces for souls. Lead them to my Eucharist Heart.”